Plea issued for more support for manufacturers
A business support programme that has created and safeguarded over 5800 manufacturing jobs in the West Midlands is urging local authorities to ensure assistance is still in place under the new funding landscape.
The Manufacturing Growth Programme (MGP) provides grants and dedicated consultancy to SME manufacturers in the region.
Business are at risk says MGP bosses, due to the gap between European Regional Development Funding and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF).
Regional Director Dean Barnes says the fragmented nature of UKSPF, where each local district will receive its own pot of money, means it will be difficult to deliver good quality support to management teams that have guided their firms through Brexit and Covid-19.
MGP has delivered £5.29m worth of grants to 2844 West Midlands companies over the last three years.
This has leveraged £8.69m of private sector investment and helped manufacturers enter new markets, diversify their products and services, improve efficiencies and secure vital quality accreditations.
Dean Barnes, Regional Director of MGP
Dean Barnes, Regional Director of MGP
Barnes said: “We’re about to enter one of the most exciting, but challenging times in business support where the focus will fall away from ERDF and into a new landscape where each place (it could be as small as a District Council) will be given control of what they want to invest in and how they want to shape their local investment plan.
“It is key that neighbouring councils work together to pool funding to deliver support at a regional level to ensure they get the most out of their budgets and reduce the amount of ‘business support’ noise in the marketplace.
“The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is intended to help the Government’s desire to ‘level up’, but West Midlands businesses must have a voice on what they want.
“They don’t just need grant funding, they also want advice, best practice implementation and help with long-term improvements.”
Funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and delivered by Oxford Innovation Advice, MGP was launched in 2016 to create a targeted service to support manufacturing SMEs.
A team of manufacturing growth managers who work with management teams on initially completing strategic business reviews was created.
From there, MGP provides grants and signposts services to specialists that deliver improvement projects in strategic planning, productivity and process improvement,
competitiveness, innovation and leadership and management.
